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2016: One Step Ahead of Success
Ahead of success
Speaker 1 “The true value of the artist (laughs) is made manifest by his distance from success
Speaker 2 “From final Success”
Speaker 1 “From final success”
Speaker 2 “If I understand correctly as an artist there is a point in your life where you will have achieved the true value (yes, yes) and after that you are not an artist anymore because that is the point you have reached it”
Speaker 3 “There is no perspective point anymore”
Speaker 2 “Yeah so you don’t want to reach that point, because once you have reached it (yes, yes) then you are fucked”
Speaker 3 “Then you don’t want to lose it anymore”
Speaker 2 “You are just repeating and you are not an artist again”
Speaker 3 “Yes”
Speaker 2 “Go on you are the English person, I am half”
Speaker 3 “It has to be condensed in one sentence”
Speaker 1 “Is it something like an artist’s value disappears as soon as it is…
Speaker 3 “I would rather put it into perspective, not disappears but it is measured by the absence of the final success but this absence is kind of postponing “
Speaker 2 “So when you are still searching you are valid as art, when you stop searching because you have found it you are not an artist anymore”
Speaker 3 “yes”
Speaker 1 “Well the true artist never finds it”
Speaker 3 “But the success is the one who kind of kills the artist off
Speaker 1 “Kills the artist?
Speaker 2 “Yeah”
Speaker 1 “The success kills the artist certainly (yeah) but then, but then art (how to put it) (pause) that is one aspect of the artist”
Speaker 3 “Of course , it is the aspect of the success, of the great success you know, when you are recognised by the thing you are doing you know, so if you are going into the risk (yeah) if you are changing your way of doing (yeah) you are risking the success because people are going to say no that is not you, you were better before you know so we want you to do the other things you were doing before the success (yes)
Speaker 1 “But there is a sense of disappearance because the success (pause) causes the artist to disappear”
Speaker 3 “In a sense yes”
Speaker 2 “In a way maybe I am being really stupid, but there is a moments let say I decide I am going to buy a new computer or a coat and I have got £100 in my pocket, I enjoy it, I enjoy the possibility of being able to buy whatever coat I want, and I am really not happy once I have brought it. I spent my money and I have got a coat but I have lost those possibilities, the possibilities”
Speaker 1 “Artistic success is an acquisition that invalidates the artist
Foreign language between 2 & 3
Speaker 3 “When you are not sure of yourself?”
Speaker 1 “doubt”
Speaker 3 “No not as doubt but if you say this person is – instead of …(uncertainty) uncertainty yes., I think we should start with uncertainty and work from there yeah? Are you ok with that?”
Speaker 2 “I think the artist should preserve the uncertainty no?
Speaker 3 “Yeah but you started with a thing”
Speaker 2 “postponing the final success until we find the right expression in English! We can start – but it is different you know the final success destroys the artist or the value of the artist is measured – postponed”
Speaker 3 “Well if you are a true artist and you get to a stage in the future when you think you have worked it out you are not an artist anymore”
Speaker 1 “There you are – dissatisfaction is the point. A continual dissatisfaction”
Speaker 2 “so that is why the market is not working for the artist now “
Speaker 3 “Yeah because they validate you”
Speaker 2 “They are working on your success to sell you better, but once they sell you they lose the artist”
Speaker 1 “Stagnation”
Speaker 3 “That is really interesting because if they want you to be a good artist you are not going to be a successful one in some way (yes) but they don’t care about that (no) the market
Speaker 2 “Because they are thinking from the side of the market who is destroying the artist. So the market and the artist they are not compatible”
Speaker 3 “Yeah”
Speaker 1 “They want a new model artist each year, this year’s model (yes) next year’s model (yes) and the artist that doesn’t achieve that remains an artist. The artist that becomes the brand model, the series, artist series B25”
Speaker 2 “And he is being used”
Speaker 1 “Yup”
Speaker 2 “until it lasts the interest”
Speaker 1 “Yeah well usually a year”
Speaker 2 “Yeah so what do you want not being successful and last the whole life?
Speaker 1 “Eternal dissatisfaction”
Speaker 2 “Yes but you are playing jazz, nobody is listening to you but it is nice or you are having a pop kind of a hit “
Speaker 1 “or you are constant I mean Bruce Nelman is constantly…they said constantly successful in every different thing he does that add values astonishingly, oddly it is bizarre that he can be so challenging both to himself and the audience and have a market value
Foreign Language spoken
Speaker 2 “The exception…
Speaker 3 “oh yes proves the rule”
Speaker 2 “So of course we would like to be the exception that is our final success to be an exception”
Speaker 3 “I mean maybe the exception would be that you make work which has two levels. One is quite actually a beautiful object – I would never succeed in that
Speaker 1 “How beautiful
Speaker 3 “But the meaning behind it is completely subversive”
Speaker 2 “But I think there is a beautiful meaning, there cannot be an ugly form I don’t know”
Speaker 1 “No I agree absolutely, absolutely”
Speaker 2 “if it is proportional if you succeed to give a form to your beautiful meaning then you are a good artist. I don’t know how it is going to look like but if the beauty is there, the beauty of the idea then it is beautiful”
Speaker 1 “and that is true success and true value”
Speaker 2 “Yes”
Speaker 3 “Let’s find an example from the history of art, where that is the case”
Speaker 2 “there are not many”
Speaker 1 “No there are not”
Speaker 2 “I also wrote once you know the art, I doubt in the art in the artist I don’t know (yeah) so I cannot look at an artist like a book good, not good I like, I don’t like so I have to meet the artist to see if this person and his art…”
Speaker 3 “Are compatible?”
Speaker 2 “Yes, otherwise he is lying to me”
Speaker 1 “Absolutely this is why…
Speaker 3 “He or she for the record?”
Speaker 2 “She of course”
Speaker 1 “I shock some English artists, well I am Welsh so I deliberately shock them because even artists…oh we are recording this (laughs) because everyone says in the whole history of English art Turner, Bacon, painting – turner, bacon erm they sometimes say Hogarth but very few people admit that Gainsborough is a great artist. He is someone I would love to speak to and after have dinner with. Love to he doesn’t lie – his paintings are delightful, exceptionally beautiful (audio fades out) than people like Turner who I think was probably a horrible, horrible person “
Speaker 2 “Money can happen as a blessing and then you have to maybe use it in a good way, but money shouldn’t be the goal”
Speaker 3 “The problem is the blessing is money the temptation is then you think you have discovered the formula and then you finish as an artist so what you are saying is perfect. Once you have found the formula…”
Speaker 1 “The blessing is money, the temptation is profit”
Speaker 3 “What do you mean it is how you use the money?
Speaker 1 “Well if you want more. You have money to continue your project”
Speaker 2 “If you know the formula and you start to adjust your art accordingly to this formula”
Speaker 3 “Even subconsciously”
Speaker 2”You are making money”
Speaker 1 “Yes and money is the aim”
Speaker 2 “because art I think is always escaping, always escaping the main taste because not so many people are valuing artists in the time that it is happening actually, not seeing it actually, they all come after somebody found it and gave it value. So you have the artist story of they discovered somebody then comes the market after him, so the right collectioner should buy it when nobody sees the art”
Speaker 1 “Absolutely”
Speaker 2 “The problem is now by saying that, I can see what you are saying you are also saying you are going completely materialistic ways like the good collector is one who has the nose to find the person who will become…
Speaker 3 “The artist with the formula”
Speaker 2 “Then I can respect him , he is dealing with the market but he is taking risk so whoever wants to be artist or close to him must take some risk. The art historian, the curator, the museum everybody not just collect only the known values because there is no risk he is only going with conventions (yeah) but he should invest in values and that is the point”
Speaker 1 “Well could we make all art have no monetary value? We have tried of course but then the market invest monetary value in it”
Speaker 3 “you have that with the conceptual artists from the 70s yeah all those nick naks are now very expensive”
Speaker 2 “Making a good wine on success you can’t make it if you are thinking on making money, there can be a perspective of a better future maybe sometimes you know this wine could be world known and maybe I will make some money but if you start thinking about the money value you are not going to make it because you don’t have time to waste. You need quantity – there is different logic then making good thing.
Speaker 1 “Well it is chasing not an idea but err, but err”
Speaker 3 “My worry is that when I think of Susak Expo that has been 5 times and every time I am getting a bit closer to a formula and there might be a time that it gets validated you know people in inverted commas important in the art world will say this is actually a good thing. I think that will be the end of Susak Expo and what I find interesting is that I am thriving to make it a good thing.
It is exactly what you were saying at the beginning, once it becomes a good thing a perfect thing I think it will be the end of it”
Speaker 2 “but you hesitated to use all this marketing means to make it valuable straight away to begin but you are doing it from inside slowly so all your friends and artists who know you as a person they start to validate you. Yeah so it is not imposed by some date or Brooklyn gallery, it comes from inside (yeah) the same as the professor, students you cannot impress them with your title I am professor and I am the artist. The more you are insecure and close to there you know they might validate you, you know as a (colleague) as a colleague yes. Different level, human level and then maybe you can teach them something”
Speaker 3 “yah, yeah”
Speaker 2 “Otherwise it is academic and there is a repulsion they don’t like it they don’t want it they are going to be conformist and comply with all the rules. They are going to get the stamp but they are going to think you know…11 (laughs) 11 “
Speaker 3 “Still it s something that worries me especially with Susak Expo because this year it has done a big step. Maybe because people from (place) have found out about it which I love but it worries…but there are other islands”
Speaker 2 “That is true, that is true – but maybe the end of the world (before that) the end of Susak is the end of the world “
Speaker 1 “It is only built on sand”
Speaker 2 “Yes and as we said yesterday Susak is the future”
Speaker 3 “Yes”
Speaker 2 “So this coming back to Susak is going to be on a completely different level of recognition”
Speaker 1 “You want people to wish – you want people to wish they had gone to Susak when its dead and after it is finished and no longer exists you want enough people to say oh I wish I could have gone there”
Speaker 3 “But it will be interesting if there is a Susak expo which is very successful in the wrong way and people can wish to what it was before it was successful”
Speaker 1 “well I am seeing that with supernormal they will very soon look back on the first 5 years as a progression towards success on one level and…
Speaker 2 “Maybe we can postpone the success of Susak by making bad art, maybe we should make an effort just make bad things you know”
Speaker 3 “The problem is that you can validate bad art
Speaker 1 “Easily”
Speaker 3 “Remember wasn’t there a period where you were supposed to do bad paintings and that was cool”
Speaker 1 “Absolutely but not everyone could do it (laughs)
Speaker 3 “Anyway what I want to do is have this one sentence to say what we are doing to make it official”
Speaker 2 “After this discussion can we make one sentence”
Speaker 3 “and not with examples of Susak but about art and the artist “
Speaker 1 “It must be like some tantric thing “
Speaker 3 “It must be something that goes on facebook like you know that is clever”
Speaker 2 “Put an image of an island and a nice font on the top”
Speaker 3 “Yeah no definitely not!”
Speaker 2 “You are in English speaking (after the discussion) after all this you know one…”
Speaker 1 “I hate the way Daniel relies on me for this “
Speaker 2 “oh everybody is looking at you”
Speaker 3 “So (laughs) it is difficult for him because as soon as he starts saying a sentence we go no, no it is not that – but go on”
Silence
Speaker 3 “Searching, because the searching – if I understood this correctly we agreed that the searching that is unsure of oneself is where the true artist lies and at some point in the future we will actually stop doubting and be more certain, be more validated and that is when we stop being an artist”
Speaker 1 “well true artists constantly work on the edge of uncertainty and exploration – that is a bad word”
Speaker 2 “Maybe the artist is always one step in front of the success”
Speaker 3 “Behind?”
Speaker 2 “In front”
Speaker 3 “But that is successful to be one step in front of success”
Speaker 2 “That is success as an artist but it is not marketable”
Speaker 3 “A true artist is one step ahead in success”
Speaker 1 “Yes as soon as they start following success they have lost”
Speaker 3 “yeah I mean Van Gogh was one step ahead of success”